European karate champion faces eviction

Alexander Udovichenko, a martial artist, is resisting being evicted from Sputnik recreational facility.

KIEV (QHA) -

Management of Sputnik recreational facility, owned by Kyivpastrans, is having refugees evicted for failure to pay a residential fee. The Social Policy Ministry and a charity organization who arranged for refugees from Crimea and Donbass to stay in the facility, failed to provide them with documents necessary for them to be checked in officially.

This is the reason why the refugees, and more specifically Alexander Udovichenko, have been locked in a conflict with Svetlana Zhoga, the facility’s managing director. They have been getting bills but declining to pay them because the bills bear no seals. Having no documents acknowledging their registration at the facility prevents the refuges from getting social aid and makes paying residential fees problematic.

The refugees are required to pay a monthly residential fee of UAH 500 for a grownup person and UAH 200 for a child. Nobody can provide any explanation as to why a residential fee like that has been established. The refugees are prepared to pay the fee but they expect to be given proper bills bearing seals.

The Sputnik residents are complaining about being forcefully evicted by the facility’s management and constantly beaten up by the director’s ‘assistants’. Being a coach of Ukraine National Karate Team, Alexander Udovichenko is to go to Poland for the European Championships this October. However, he is afraid of not being able to make it back to his room after his return.

All of the refugees residing in the facility are wary of a further escalation of the conflict.

The only upside to the situation is that the Canadian Mission is still supplying the refugees with food funds and clothes it has been collecting jointly with other charity organizations.